Monday, July 26, 2010

The Kuala Lumpur Zine Fest 2010 was planned to be on 25th July in conjunction with worldwide zine month which is celebrated on July. Many zine-related events happen all over the world on this month. A few weeks before the event, I went around town distributing flyers and also posted it online. A lot of people asked whether it’s really happening so I took it as a good sign.

Ben gave an idea to do something like 24 hours zine making. But instead taking 24 hours to finish the contribution, I figured they should do it on the spot. So I name the activity on the spot zine making.

On the day itself, as soon as I woke up I went to buy a pack of pens and cut a few A4 papers into half. I went to fetch Kudin at Bangsar and we headed to the venue, Noisy Warehouse. Noisy is a space a community space where a lot of activities like gigs, screening and DIY events been held.

Some punks spent the night there after the gig the night before. Some were still sleeping. After filling my belly, I went inside to help cleaning the space, setting up the tables and prepare for the event. Three girls were early and bought many zines. Two of them are from neighboring country; Thailand.

The event officially started at 3.30pm. We had some light performances by one man show, The Chalat Chalat and two bands; Keladak and The Pips. As The Pips started their set, rain started pouring heavily. There was a surprise during The Pips set, the front woman Hana announced the birthday of Nunu who stays at Noisy. During these performances also we had ‘On the Spot zine making’. We provided some pens and papers for the participants to write or draw. We asked them to share a DIY recipe, a simple fixing skill or petua.

After The Pips’ set, we proceeded with screening of Joe Biel’s ‘$100 and a T-Shirt’ documentary movie about zine subculture in the states. Mat Norr suggested switching-off the lights so everyone would concentrate watching the movie and can proceed buying the zines after that. More and more kids arrived during the screening as the rain started to calm down a bit.

After the movie ended, we crowd proceed with buying and trading zines. We also had zine reading session. Azizi who released his latest issue of Bebal zine read some excerpts from that and previous issues. Mat Norr read about his surgery experience from Scenery Is Free latest issue. I read Ben’s writing from my latest issue, Mosh #13. Yuen who just released a zine Shock & Awe talked about the zine and read his writing. Salleh Bintang Kertas talked about why he did zines and lastly Alind read some poems from his zine and talked about Kudeta Collective. The whole event ended at 7.30 pm.

I can safely say the ‘fest’ was a success even though it feels more like a gathering of zines makers, readers, and friends rather than a fest. The name is just an exaggeration to make it feel grand anyway. See you at Kuala Lumpur Zine Fest next year, which hopefully would be better than this first attempt.

People around me always said that whatever happened in your dreams, the opposite things will happen. I do agree with that. It was proven a lot of times in my life.

Last year I lost my mobile phone. Then in my nap I kept on dreaming about the phone. I dreamt my girlfriend called me. The image was that very same phone with her name on the screen. I can’t sleep well.

Last week I had a nightmare. I was at a very faraway place and I misplaced my car key. Even though it seemed like a simple thing it was kinda very long and one of the worst nightmares I had in a while. With no spare key and at a strange place, it seemed so real. I woke up sweating.

This morning it almost became a reality. I misplaced my car key. I escaped from work for a while and took a nap and kept on dreaming about the key. Later that day I found it in a small pocket of my bag, I wonder who or how did it get in there.

Last two years I had the worst nightmares of my life, as far as I can remember. In that nightmare the whole family was at a beach. My mother was so excited and called us to join her playing with the water. All of a sudden a very big wave was splashing towards us and pushed my mother. Her body was smashed onto some buildings so hard and…I don’t wanna continue writing.

I woke up that very instant and was sweating. Then I continued sleeping.

I had a second nightmare right away after that. This time around, it was at our house. It was raining cats and dogs and flooding. The water was rising so fast. I climbed up to the highest cupboard in the house with my mother’s help. She couldn’t make it and was drowned.

I woke up that very instant for the second time. I was sweating like hell. I can’t sleep anymore. The nightmare seemed so real. I kept on thinking about my mother. I felt like calling her that instant. I drank some plain water, like what my mother would suggest if we were in shock.

I called my mother as soon as the sun rises. She was okay. I told her I had dreams of her. But I didn’t tell about the nightmares.

I texted my auntie and told about the nightmares. She said that the nightmares meant that my mother will be healthy and have a long life.